The annual report highlights the commission’s work over the past year, including its legal interventions and policy development.

The past year also saw the commission hold its largest-ever public consultation into discrimination faced by people with mental-health disabilities — a problem only now moving to the forefront as a human rights issue even though about one-in-five Canadians will suffer some form of mental illness during their lives.

More than 1,000 people with mental-health issues sent lengthy submissions about their experiences of discrimination in the health-care system, housing, education and the workforce.

“We were amazed, I think it’s fair to say, at the response,” Hall said of the response to the consultations. “There are many issues there.”

Now that the consultations are out of the way, the commission will spend the coming year developing a policy and advice on how to apply the human rights code in cases of mental illness.

Society and institutions simply don’t have the skills to deal with the problem, so areas will include practical advice on how to accommodate people in the workplace and the various options and steps.

“It is a tough one,” Hall said. “It’s been hidden in the closet.”

The commissioner also said she was pleased the sexually transgendered — a group that has suffered discrimination and even violence — are now explicitly protected by the rights code.

The agency also released a blueprint to follow when conflicts arise between competing rights.

It is looking to come up with a new definition of “creed,” which the commission last defined in 1996 as a professed system and confession of faith — a definition that may be “outdated,” the report states.

The human rights commission spent a total of $5.5 million in the past fiscal year, according to the report.